


Shadows Searching

by m3aculpa



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, Rape/Non-con References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-25
Updated: 2010-09-25
Packaged: 2017-10-25 01:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m3aculpa/pseuds/m3aculpa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/270005">Mirror Reflection</a>. He didn't remember much of the days following the one when he received the photograph. All he knew was that it was his fault.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows Searching

**Author's Note:**

> **Title:** Shadows Searching  
>  **Fandom:** Glee **  
> Rating:** PG  
>  **Characters/Pairings:** Schue, Kurt, Bryan Ryan  
>  **Warnings:** Mentions of non-con  
>  **Word count:** 2087  
>  **Summary** : Sequel to [Mirror Reflection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/270005). He didn't remember much of the days following the one when he received the photograph. All he knew was that it was his fault.  
>  **a/n:** For [](http://totalgleekgirl.livejournal.com/profile)[**totalgleekgirl**](http://totalgleekgirl.livejournal.com/) , who wanted to see Schue's reaction to the events in Mirror Reflection.  
> 

William Schuester had been talking to somebody when he got the image. He couldn’t remember who it was. It was blanked from his mind. He did remember that they had been laughing. That he was still smiling when he took his phone and saw that image. That tiny little photograph that contained horrors he’d never imagined would happen to one of his kids and the words proclaiming that if it wasn’t for him, it wouldn’t have happened.  
   
He knew which bathroom it was, only because of the graffiti. They just had a staff meeting about it, after all. It’s a particularly obscene piece that made the teachers worry about the students. It was decided that it would be painted over that afternoon. Kurt was lying just underneath it. A broken heap with blood and white streaks across his thighs. Schuester barely made it to the trashcan when he saw it.  
   
He ignored whoever’s concern when he threw up. Only wasting a second to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, before he took off running. The phone was digging into the soft tissues of his hand; he was clenching it so hard. He was scared that he was going to break it. Before he knew it, he’d dialled 911 and told the operator that a student had been hurt and that they needed help. Or something like that. He wasn’t really that aware of it.  
   
There was a group of students standing outside the bathroom. They looked like they were physically ill. A jock that Will knew had been tormenting Kurt in the past, actually threw up against the hallway. He shouldered his way through the crowd and into the bathroom. He was trembling.  
   
He blacked out the moment he saw Kurt. They later said that he had gently talked Kurt out of his panic and then rode with him to the hospital. He’d nearly been mauled by a frantic Burt Hummel. And after that he’d arrived, Schuester had apparently gone home and fallen asleep.  
   
Shock, he would later realise.  
   
He was woken by the phone the next morning. It was the police. At first he couldn’t understand what they wanted, before it all rushed back to him. Kurt’s bloodied half-naked form flashed before his eyes. He dropped the phone and rushed to the sink to retch. The police was still on the phone when he came back.  
   
“Mr Schuester? Mr Schuester?” the tinny voice asked over and over again, sounding slightly worried.  
   
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The sour taste of vomit clung to every corner of his mouth. It threatened to send him running for the sink again. But managed to force the bile down and answered levelly:  
   
“Sorry, I’m here. I accidentally dropped the phone,” he said and it didn’t sound like his voice.  
   
It was too calm. Too even and too low. It did not sound like him. It wasn’t his voice. He disassociated with the world again. It became distant and misty. It didn’t hurt anymore. There was something tickling at the back of his mind. A notion about the message. But he couldn’t imagine it to be true so it was shoved far back.  
   
The police on the other end was too polite to comment on the fact that he had taken too long to get the phone again. Instead the woman very softly asked him to come down to the station and give a statement.  
   
“We have already interviewed Kurt, but we’d like to see if you can give us additional information that can help us get the guy responsible. So if you could come down, it would be to great help.”  
   
“I’ll be there,” William said in that distant tone of voice again; feeling like it wasn’t real. “Just give me a few minutes.”  
   
It was a wonder he and his crap of a car made it in one piece to the police station. His mind really wasn’t on the driving. It took too much out of him to keep the image of Kurt at bay. His phone lay on the seat next to him. He didn’t want to touch it. He vowed to buy a new phone. There was a taint to it that could never be got rid off.  
   
The police officer met him by the door. He couldn’t remember her name five minutes after she said it. Later on, he couldn’t remember if he accepted the offer of water or not. But he would remember handing over his phone. She opened the phone and stared at the picture. The stoniness of her face as she tried to hide her disgust would stay with him.  
   
“Are you aware of Kurt having any enemies?” she asked after a while.  
   
“No,” Schueser said. “I know that the football players are giving him hassle, but I cannot name them, I’m afraid.”  
   
She scribbled it down and bit her pen thoughtfully. She gave him a careful look, before asking bluntly:  
   
“Do you know a Mr Bryan Ryan?”  
   
He froze.  
   
“Y-yes,” he stammered. “We went to school together. But why…?”  
   
“And he recently came back to McKinley, yes?” she said, consulting her notes. “To oversee the creative programmes?”  
   
He answered an affirmative, bewildered as of where this was going (he knew). She couldn’t honestly think that _Ryan_ had done it (he thought it too). Bryan Ryan was not capable of this (no he had not _been_ capable – this new Ryan was a different matter).  
   
“Does he have a grudge against you, Mr Schuester?”  
   
Bryan Ryan had got all the solos and all the girls, except from Terri. And why would he want her now when her nasty brand of crazy had been exposed? If anything, it should be Schuester who should have a grudge against him. But… the disillusioned Bryan Ryan had all his dreams crashing down and burning out. And Schuester had rekindled those dreams.  
   
“We were both trying out for the roll of Jean Valjean in Les Mis,” he said quietly. “I got the part.”  
   
She raised an eyebrow. “And you think that he would hold a grudge for something like that? Mr Schuester… that seems rather petty.”  
   
He didn’t know how to tell her what it meant for men like them. How their dreams had nourished most of their high school experience and how much it _hurt_ not to have them come true. William Schuester felt that he contributed to society by giving his kids the opportunity to grow and maybe fulfil their dreams. Bryan Ryan had no such outlet.  
   
“How would one hurt you the easiest, Mr Schuester?” she pressed on. “Is this all the result of a vendetta?”  
   
He froze. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t _breathe._ There must have been some sort of response because she asked him to write it all down and sign it. They would be keeping his phone. As previously stated, he was in no hurry to get it back. He left the station at the same time as they brought in Bryan Ryan. Their eyes met on the opposites of the room. Ryan looked demonical; a manic sneer on his face and a contemptuous glare, still strangely triumphant. Schuester flinched back. He would have nightmares about that look.  
   
He drove home safely once again (miraculously). There was a memory of pouring one glass of wine. When he woke the next morning, head splitting into two and nausea that had nothing to do with the memory of Kurt’s torment, the bottle was empty.  
   
He called in sick that day (coward).  
   
He called in sick the following days (how would he face them again?).  
   
On the seventh day of his chosen exile, there was a knock on the door. His phone had been ringing incessantly. He staggered up from the couch (had he left it at all?) and went to answer the door. Fully prepared to yell about being left alone, he stiffened when he realised who it was on the other end of the door.  
   
Kurt looked almost normal. A little paler and a little more wary. His shoulders were pulled up just a bit and he was tense. And if his clothes were a tad baggier than usual, they were still ‘fabulous’. Schuester was so taken back, that he let Kurt enter his apartment. The boy was careful not to touch him and he walked stiffly, which was so out of place. Kurt always moved with a fluid grace that seemed effortless; awkward was never a word to describe him. But he was moving awkwardly now.  
   
His fault. The guilt slammed into him like an eighteen wheeler truck. His fault. If it hadn’t been for him, this wouldn’t have happened. Kurt wouldn’t look like he wanted to bolt, like he was steeling himself to be in Schue’s presence, if it hadn’t been for him. Kurt was fragile. He knew it. The boy was like a twig; he could easily be snapped into two.  
   
“Oh, stop it with the guilt already!” Kurt suddenly snapped.  
   
“Pardon me?” Schuester asked in surprise.  
   
Kurt stiffly sat down on the couch without waiting for an invitation. William was gaping too much in surprise to offer one. Kurt winced in discomfort. The guilt stabbed Schue in the heart. Kurt put his hands in his knee and looked so normal it was surreal.  
   
“You heard me,” the boy said bitingly. “Stop brooding and leave isolation. Gaga knows I don’t blame you, so why should you blame yourself for the actions of a psychopathic lunatic?”  
   
The words spilled forth, unbidden; “Kurt, don’t you understand? If it wasn’t for me… this wouldn’t have happened. He wouldn’t have _hurt_ you.”  
   
Kurt’s eyes were a little distant and he grabbed onto his knees so hard his knuckles whitened. Still he seemed somewhat composed.  
   
“I’ve been holed up in my room, much like you are doing now,” he said absent-mindedly. “Trying to come terms with it. He hurt me. He _raped_ me. It makes me feel ashamed. It makes me angry. It also makes me sad – sad that he’s such a pathetic man that he can’t face his own failures without blaming somebody else and take revenge on them.”  
   
“He _hurt_ you,” Schue tried to get it across, because Kurt didn’t seem to get it – didn’t seem to understand that Ryan had only done it to get back at Schuester (Kurt should blame _him_ ).  
   
“He _raped_ me,” Kurt cut in sharply. “Say it. And yes, it hurt me. Yes, I’m not going to be okay for a while. But I will fight to be okay again. And I rather it happened to me than anybody else. He took the first of us he saw and coincidence had me there. It would kill me if it had been Brittany or Tina or Rachel or Quinn… though, I’d pay to see the bastard try to take on Santana or Mercedes.” He leaned forward. “Point is: it happened. An outside force struck at one of us. Me. The others were scared; they needed you. And you needed them.”  
   
Schue collapsed on the couch, too dizzy to stand anymore. The horrors of the last week had drained him of energy. There were several feet of air between them. He didn’t look upon Kurt, but rather ahead of himself without seeing anything. Kurt’s stare burnt him. He wasn’t aware when he started crying. Only that he was and he couldn’t see a thing in front of him.  
   
“I need you,” Kurt said and his voice was a little lost boy’s. “I trust you. You are the best teacher I have; you care. Yes, you are clueless and naïve to stupidity, but you care, there’s no denying that. And I am so confused. I need you, I trust you. Please don’t let my trust be misplaced.”  
   
He was crying too hard to speak. Kurt rose from the couch, he heard him, but he didn’t see anything because of the blurriness of tears. Kurt knelt in front of him and hesitantly brought up his arms. He hugged Schuester tightly, like a small child seeking comfort.  
   
“I am sorry,” the teacher choked out. “I am so, so sorry. I’m sorry. I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry…”  
   
He kept sobbing the words over and over. Kurt hushed him and absolved him.  
   
“It’s okay, Mr Schue. It wasn’t your fault. I forgive you.”   
 

  
 _Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future._  ~Paul Boese  
   
 _It is easier to forgive others – it is harder to forgive yourself._ ~ Unknown  
  



End file.
